Wireless networks are telecommunications networks that use radio waves to carry information from one node in the network to one or more receiving nodes in the network. Cellular telephony may be characterized by the use of radio cells that provide radio coverage for a geographic area, with multiple cells arranged to provide contiguous radio coverage over a larger area. Wired communication can also be used in portions of a wireless network, such as between cells or access points.
Wireless communication technologies are used in connection with many applications, including, for example, satellite communications systems, portable digital assistants (PDAs), laptop computers, and mobile devices (e.g., cellular telephones, user equipment). Users of such applications can connect to a network (e.g., the Internet) as long as the user is within range of such a wireless communication technology. The range of the wireless communication technology can vary depending on the deployment. These applications communicate over a network such as the Internet using a variety of specific network protocols. Example network protocols include Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), Internet Protocol (IP), Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), User Datagram Protocol (UDP), File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), and Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP). These network protocols are relied upon by major Internet applications such as the World Wide Web, email, remote administration, and file transfer.